Visual_Argument_Flitner

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Jacqui Flitner

English 101

McGaughey

Reflection

Dying Seas

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”(Disney) Curiosity has brought humanity into space, sailing uncharted waters and conquering new lands for thousands of years. But as the old saying goes “Curiosity killed the cat” we have killed our planet, or really on the verge of doing so. The one thing that makes our planet uniquely different from all the others is out oceans. The ocean covers up to 75% of planet and we don’t take very good care of it. Perhaps it’s because we don’t truly respect it as we should. We dump sewage into it and kill those that inhabit it. Not all of humanity has mistreated the ocean. Many are unaware of how not placing plastic in the recycling bin can harm an ocean dweller. Or how not picking up after your dog, will lead to having dog waste in our oceans. I think many of us see the damage however. When the bay waters look sick with a green tint to it, and the clear waters of the tropics are more appealing, we should take a step back and really process the damage done.

For my visual argument I chose to do an ironic drawing. It’s a tarot card featuring the dying ocean. Tarot cards are a human invention based purely on myth to help solve future problems. Similar to the horoscope, many really buy into these. We as human want to solve our mysteries without realizing that we have very clear issues we haves to take care of now. I used a monotone colour palette to convey depression, lost, hurt, and suffering. From various greys, blacks, and blues I think the colours really speak a volume on how the ocean feels when it cannot speak for itself. I used strong visually imagery of garbage retiled beaches to show how humanity is trashy at best. While the dying mermaid to there solely to show that the ocean has lost it’s wonder and respect from us. The black waters are to show how the ocean is mysterious and dying. We don’t fully grasp what is out there in the ocean, yet we feel as though it’s ok to mistreat it. Everything is set on white paper which stands for the innocence of the earth. If we all spent time to think what goes down our water drains, where our trash truly goes and make a stand to treat the ocean better the earth I think will thank us for it.

The information I gathered really helped me to have a clear understanding of the damage we do as humans. Beyond the ocean we pollute the air and tear down entire rainforests. Many websites I found where slightly extreme, such as GreenPeace, but they really painted a good picture of the destruction for the environment. The Aquarium of the Pacific also provided information on how oil spills, and garbage hurt the wild life. SeaWorld even has put up several campaigns explaining the harm we’re doing. One of the worst things we created was plastic. Plastic cannot go back into the earth, and can wind up in the ocean. Animals get trapped and hurt with plastics containers, and packaging. But even then within the past 10 years there have been three major oil spills, radioactive waste, and several other destructive entities introduced. All having long lasting effects that are still present to this day.

With all the information gathered I had to pick and choose which problems were to be highlighted. There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to the environment, and ways to fix it. The number one way to fix these problems is to simple acknowledge that they exists and take an extra step to going green. We don’t have to stray as far as perhaps GreenPeace does with going green, but there are several little things we can do, such as recycling. I think with the colour choices, and the imagery I used the information can come across. We are in fact a society that thrives on visuals. We tell our stories through visuals. We protest through visuals with street art and witty comics in the newspapers. This isn’t so much of a protest as it a wakeup call. We can help the ocean and with that we can help the environment.